Tham Jiak means in some way "love to eat" in Hokkien. I am a Malaysian Hokkien and truly love to eat.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Touch My Heart

“Touch the heart”, that is what it literary meant for the infamous Chinese cuisine,m Dim Sum. Apart from what was said as historical founding of Dim Sum (still with citation needed)in Wiki, to me somehow at the back of my mind, Dim Sum started right inside the royal palace. It was meant to be a feast fit for a King for sure, with its various complicated preparations, many special varieties, delicate creation (only possible to be created ages ago by King’s wives and concubines in their free time to win over his hearts) and most of with luxurious ingredients (in those times) like meat, seafood and fruits. I imagine many Dim Sum were churn out month after month by them just to compete to ‘touch the heart’ of their King. Just in case, I might reiterate that this was all in the back of my mind, histories formed by me out of too many Chinese dramas and stories I would say. I would quote what I said as ‘citation needed’ as well, he-he.

Once I read from a long time favourite Hong Kong food blog of mine, his version of how Dim Sum came about, certainly the other side of the coin in comparison to mine. To Cha Xiu Bao it was “point to the heart” where it meant stab to the heart with a cleaver, you say ‘what!’; well to know the full story head over here. For me, let me remain with my girlish dreams of ‘touching hearts’ and happy endings.

As Chinese, I am somehow strangely drawn towards Dim Sum, my banner has already long displays my love for it. Moreover, I am one who delights in many tastes and textures during my meal, and where else can I get it better than a Dim Sum feast. We have the soft pillowy Char Xiu Bao (steamed pork bun), chewy Siu Mai (steamed pork dumpling), delicate Har Gau (steamed shrimp dumpling in thin translucent skin), soft silky Cheong Fun (steamed rolled rice noodles), crunchy and crumbly Wu Gok (fried taro dumpling with shrimp/pork/mushrooms), steamy and soupy Xiu Long Bao (steamed mini pork dumplings with soup) and the rests of sweet desserts to clear the palate such as Egg Tart, Jin Dui (fried sesame dumpling with sweet fillings) and water chestnut cake (had it in Hong Kong, seldom found in Malaysia). From these you can imagine how I fell head over heels in first bite for this cuisine since I was young where the love was further much reinforced during my trip to Hong Kong.

So when I J told me to seek for a Dim Sum brunch buffet for his father’s birthday-plus-father’s day celebration, my heart made a summersault of joy, and so I went in quest to find a good one of which I did, I found China Treasures.

Although it was Halal, pardon me but many of the famous Dim Sum is actually made of pork and we cannot really imagine otherwise, the definite first response from a typical Chinese would be “no pork definitely will be not as nice”, but China Treasures truly crosses this stereotype and brought us to enjoy Dim Sum in new ways. I would not say it is better than other rich pork-laden Dim Sum out there, but in its own class, it is praise worthy. In fact when we talk bout pork must-have is definitely the Cha Xiu Bao, and here we have one which taste surprisingly quite like the real one, slightly different yet still tasty, I had doubled orders for it, note that this is buffet style where you can order as many times as you want, provided you can finish it, and boy can J family and I eat, we definitely can be certified as top customers after that, in the eating-the-most department of course.

One special dish was the dumpling in special sauce which I could not remember the Chinese name but it was indeed special, where it is a cross of Sui Gao (shrimp and pork dumpling, in this case no pork) with sweet and slightly spicy sauce. It was J’s mum’s favourite.

We also had cheong fun to fill in some area of our never-ending stomach; I must say it was pretty good as well. Skin is soft and filling is flavourful though the chilli lack some kick.

Next was the Har Gao, one of my Dim Sum favourite, where this one scores pretty well with translucent and soft skin plus generous fillings of fresh prawns, delish!

Then we had various usual Dim Sum dishes of Xiu Long Bao, meatballs, fishballs and Siu Mai, though these dishes aren’t exactly praiseworthy but it was nonetheless alright for me.

We also had a soup dish each, I could not remember what was it called again but it wasn’t exactly really good as it had a slightly fishy taste to it.

At the fried department, we had many varieties, which not all that I managed to take pictures of. I remembered a there was the favourite dragonbeard dumpling, where it was rolled in vermicelli and then deep fried, crunchy and tasty and definitely need chef of certain skills to make it. We also had fried turnip cake, Wu Gok (taro cake) and not to forget is the stir fried carrot cake which was really good and we finished it so fast I did not manage to take a picture of it, but luckily you can have a look here.

We also missed out the fried almond dumpling in first few orders and had it at the last, much to our regret as it was really good as well. If I was not wrong, it was seafood paste coated with almond and then deep fried.

Scoring high on the dessert department was the sweet potato puff, where earlier I read that it was good at WMW, and boy was she right. The puff was crumbly and crispy the same while the sweet potato filling was not too sweet and authentic. The egg tarts was alright too as I remembered.

Finally we all had a dessert each, inclusive in the promotion, where we ordered a few varieties, the special lime jelly which was not exactly as expected as it does have a ‘special’ taste to it, the fig tree tong sui (sweet soup) was not bad as claimed by Q and finally my mango cream was good as well, creamy and sweet. One that was not pictured here was the walnut cream, which was rich in taste and texture, definitely worth a try.

Overall, China Treasures is definitely a place I recommend if you want to have a good and quiet feast with your family and friends. The brunch buffet promotion of RM33++ (only till end of this year, so hurry!) is a steal for such fine dining, just a note though they charge extra for the appetizers they serve up front, so let them know if you do not want it. The service was good and attentive, environment clean and peaceful (just a bit packed during peak lunch hour). What more can we ask for with Dim Sum dining of various choices, air conditioned without the usual rowdy crowds and Chinese teas serve in these beautiful dainty little cups. Told you it was a feast fit for a King.

12 comments:

The last time I went back, I noticed there is going to be a new HK dim sum restaurant (with air-cond) open in Damansara Jaya. It was still under construction at that time. You can sure go check it out when it's opened. ;)